Does big pharma dominate the coronavirus vaccine race? It might seem that way. Of the five COVID-19 vaccine candidates in late-stage testing that could be players in the U.S. market, three are being developed or co-developed by huge drugmakers.
But that still leaves a couple of not-so-big companies in the mix. Moderna and Novavax are clinical-stage biotechs that just might emerge as tremendous winners in the COVID-19 vaccine market. Here’s how they stack up against each other from an investment perspective.
Coronavirus programs
Moderna definitely enjoys something of a head start over Novavax in this race. While Novavax has a phase 3 clinical study for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine NVX-CoV2373 underway in the U.K., it hasn’t begun a pivotal U.S. study yet.
Meanwhile, Moderna has already announced fantastic interim efficacy results from the phase 3 trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273. Earlier this week, the biotech reported that the vaccine was showing an efficacy of 94.5%. That’s a lot higher than what many industry observers had previously been expecting. Moderna plans to file for an emergency use authorization for mRNA-1273 within the next few weeks.
Don’t count Novavax out, though. The company expects to start a late-stage study of NVX-CoV2373 in the U.S. by the end of November. In August, after Novavax reported early-stage clinical results, some Wall Street analysts asserted that NVX-CoV2373 had the potential to be the best-in-class COVID-19 vaccine.
